THE 2004 CAMPAIGN: THE FORMER VICE PRESIDENT

THE 2004 CAMPAIGN: THE FORMER VICE PRESIDENT; Citing a 'Shamed America,' Gore Calls for Rumsfeld, Rice, Tenet and 3 Others to Resign

By JAMES BARRON

Published: May 27, 2004

Declaring that the Bush administration ''shamed America'' with its policy on Iraq, former Vice President Al Gore yesterday called for the resignations of six high-ranking officials, including the secretary of defense, Donald H. Rumsfeld; the director of central intelligence, George J. Tenet; and the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice.

In an hourlong speech to 900 people at New York University that was interrupted by applause more than a dozen times, Mr. Gore also accused President Bush of ''utter incompetence'' on Iraq, adding that the president had ''made the world a far more dangerous place and dramatically increased the threat of terrorism against the United States.''

Mr. Gore's appearance, which was sponsored by New York University College Democrats, a student organization, and MoveOn.org PAC, an offshoot of an online organization that has run advertisements criticizing the president and his administration, amounted to a broad-gauge attack on the man who defeated Mr. Gore in 2000.

''The president convinced a majority of the country that Saddam Hussein was responsible for attacking us on Sept. 11, when in truth he had nothing whatsoever to do with it,'' Mr. Gore said. ''The president convinced the country with a mixture of documents that turned out to be forged and blatantly false assertions that Saddam was in league with Al Qaeda.''

Mr. Gore said that the three cabinet-level officials and three of Mr. Rumsfeld's top civilian deputies -- the deputy defense secretary, Paul D. Wolfowitz; Douglas J. Feith, the under secretary for policy; and Stephen A. Cambone, the under secretary for intelligence -- should step aside because of ''the catastrophe we are facing in Iraq.''

''We desperately need a national security team with at least minimal competence,'' Mr. Gore said, ''because the current team is making things worse with each passing day.'' He accused the officials he singled out of ''endangering the lives of our soldiers and sharply increasing the danger faced by American citizens everywhere in the world, including here at home.''

He faulted Mr. Rumsfeld for poor planning before the war, and failing to prevent lawlessness in Iraq since it began. ''The nation is at risk every single day that Rumsfeld remains as secretary of defense,'' Mr. Gore said. ''We need someone with good judgment and common sense.''

Mr. Gore said it was ''especially painful'' to suggest the resignation of Mr. Tenet, who served in the Clinton administration and whom Mr. Gore described as a personal friend.

Still, he said, ''I have regretfully concluded that it is important, extremely important, that our country have new leadership in the intelligence community.''

At the Central Intelligence Agency, a spokeswoman said the agency declined to comment.

At the Pentagon, a spokesman for Mr. Rumsfeld said, ''The secretary serves at the pleasure of the president, and I would encourage you to look at what the president has said about the secretary's performance over time.''

A spokesman for Mr. Feith, Maj. Paul Swiergosz, said, ''All of those individuals serve at the pleasure of the president, and they will dutifully execute their duties until such time as their services are no longer required.''

A spokeswoman for Dr. Cambone said that Major Swiergosz's comment applied to Dr. Cambone. Ms. Rice's spokesman did not return a call seeking comment.

A spokesman for the Republican National Committee issued a statement that noted that Mr. Gore was vice president at the time of the first bombing of the World Trade Center and the attacks on United States embassies in Africa and on the Navy destroyer Cole in Yemen. The spokesman, Jim Dyke, added, ''Al Gore's attacks on the president today demonstrate that he either does not understand the threat of global terror, or he has amnesia.''

In the speech, Mr. Gore said that soldiers sent to Iraq ''were clearly forced to wade into a moral cesspool designed by the Bush White House.'' He also said that the scandal over abuse of Iraqi prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison was not the result of ''a few twisted minds at the lowest ranks of our military enlisted personnel'' but of what he described as the Bush administration's systematic disregard for the requirements of the Geneva Conventions.

''What happened at that prison, it is now clear, is not the result of random acts of a few bad apples,'' he said. ''It was the natural consequence of the Bush administration policy. The abuse of the prisoners at Abu Ghraib flowed directly from the abuse of the truth that characterized the administration's march to war and the abuse of the trust that had been placed in President Bush by the American people in the aftermath of Sept. 11th.''

Photo: ''We desperately need a national security team with at least minimal competence,'' Al Gore said in a speech yesterday at New York University, ''because the current team is making things worse with each passing day.'' (Photo by Getty Images)